


Losing the Fight

by Ian___0



Category: A Cure For Wellness (2016)
Genre: Afterlife, Aftermath of Torture, But it's fun imagining what his face would look like if this occured, But the outcome is still uncertain?, Character Death, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Emotional Hurt, Flashbacks, Giving Up, Go easy on me guys lol, Grief/Mourning, He's not a well man, I cried while writing this, I feel really bad for Lockhart, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lockhart is so fucked, Lockhart probably isn't going to win this time, My First AO3 Post, Non-Consensual Electroconvulsive Therapy, Past Torture, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Restraints, Resurrection, Slight Drooling, Temporary Character Death, Unconsciousness, Visions, Volmer is so shady wtf, defibrillation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 14:59:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11969799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ian___0/pseuds/Ian___0
Summary: One of Director Volmer's patients has mysteriously passed away before he was finished with harvesting their life essence. Death is a rare occurrence here at the sanitarium. But when it happens early like this, they have some equipment to prevent their permanent deaths.





	Losing the Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is my first fic. I've been a fan of Dane DeHaan since this movie has been released. I've seen trailers for this and Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets, and I couldn't help but wonder: "Who is this dark-haired beauty??!" And so, here we are! I've decided to commemorate this moment by writing my first official fic for A Cure for Wellness! Lockhart is one of my favorite characters, and I definitely could not pass up this opportunity to share my love for him and Dane.
> 
> Hope you guys get a kick out of this one!

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The wheels of a gurney squeak down a slightly dull, sterile looking hallway towards an unmarked door with only a metal slate blocking anyone from peering through its small windows. A young male with dark hair is lying on the gurney, fairly pale, eyes open and mouth parted. His inert body is strapped down with dark beige leather straps tightened around his neck, chest, waist, wrists, and ankles. Not even his encased-in-a-cast right leg was safe from the restraints. He's being rolled by two orderlies into the room of equipment that screams electroconvulsive therapy. 

Director Volmer waits inside, his arms folded comfortably behind his back. He watches the gurney halt next to a machine. The look on his face shows that he isn't pleased. He approaches the body and places the back of one hand on the pale forehead. The raven haired man is still warm, his face retaining it's color. His heart must have recently stopped. It's only a matter of time before the afterlife completely wisps the young man away. Volmer can still harvest what's left of his dehydrating body, but they need him alive. 

Volmer drags latex gloves on his hands and opens the the deceased man's mouth, tenderly inserting a mouth guard. While he makes sure that the man's mouth is securely closed, his orderlies attach electrodes onto the man's scalp and power up the machine. Volmer pauses for a moment, staring into the man's dilated pupils. He can barely see the blue in his irides. An orderly wheels a charged defibrillation unit close to the gurney and powers up the pads by slowly rubbing them together. Volmer gives a nod to both orderlies. He puts his hands comfortably behind his back again, standing up straight with a blank expression staring at the young man.

+

Visions of Lockhart's past start to materialize blurs out of this beautiful white nothing that he finds himself in. He's younger, running across a field with a multicolored kite flying close behind him, as well as his father. He was so happy then, laughing and yelling for his father with such glee. His father was happier then, too. Where did everything go wrong? They did everything that they could together when he wasn't working so much. They were so close...

His visions increase with intensity and become more vivid. But something feels a little off here. He bounces from Mom to Dad and back again, reliving his favorite times. He swears he could watch his mother make her ballerina statuettes all day whenever his father had to work. Suddenly, he's thrown into his father's car, thrusted into that rainy moment of his father's suicide. They've frozen on the busy bridge, his father has purposely fallen off the railing, leaving his only son behind to God knows what trauma.

After that, things increasingly turn sour. Dozens of flashbacks occur: the deer, the car accident, losing teeth, drowning, the sanitarium, Mom being cremated, the eels, oh god, the eels. He wishes water wasn't a need. 

The white starts to crumble and crash like glass. He glances down to see that he's back to his current age; he lacks clothing. Lockhart cranes his head forward, watching the white glass falling to the ground like rain. He hears a high pitch hum further down that path. It's getting louder, shooting faster and faster toward him until he's struggling to block his ears with his hands. He grimaces at the noise and gives a pained, gritty groan through his teeth. His groan turns into a labored yell of the same caliber at the arrival of chest pain, as if his heart was being shredded inside of him. His legs buckle underneath him, falling to his knees. One hand had automatically moved to his chest. The suffering is too great, and it keeps pulsing back, each pump of pain rougher than the last. Everything that he has experienced thus far at the sanitarium, hallucinations included, rams into his thoughts like a freight train. 

After what would seem like an eternity, the pain ceases, and he is forced completely to the floor. He lays on his side, knees halfway to his chest and one arm in his view. He stares at his hand laying face up, fingers curled naturally. His mouth is parted, a minimal amount of drool leaking from the corner. 

I deserve... All of this...

He spots his hand starting to disappear into dust. This dusting follows along his arm and towards the rest of his body until there's nothing left. As the last of him disappears, all he can hear is the very familiar jingle of his mother's dreaming ballerina ringing around this strange area. He sheds a single tear in the new found blackness. 

+

Lockhart's chest jolts upward, against the pads when they make contact for the seventh time. His brain reacts to the electricity from the electroconvulsive therapy, mouth clenching down on the guard. His groan is loud and welling with utter despair. His tears are visible in the real world now. His eyes slam shut as he struggles underneath the restraints.

Volmer furrows his brows in surprise when they actually succeeded in dragging Lockhart out of the afterlife. As soon as he came back to reality, the orderlies pulled the defibrillator pads away, peeled the electrodes from his scalp, and carefully removed his mouth guard after grabbing his jaw. 

Lockhart's groan turns into a pained scream deeply reverberating from his throat. He's completely lost it. He kept being pushed to the edge of it all, and he finally fell to the death of his sanity. Volmer instantly knew that this wasn't a way of defiance from the young man. A grin spreads across his face as he waits patiently for Lockhart to calm down. 

He eventually becomes too sore for screaming; even bile finds a way to the back of his throat. His cough hurts him and so does his tears. His eyes are burning when he opens them. He's back at the sanitarium, away from that place. He looks to see Volmer standing close to him. His lips are parted and trembling along with his jaw. He's afraid of what he might do next, but he doesn't possess the strength to carry on. Lockhart closes his eyes and squeezes out another tear that rolls down the side of his face. 

"It's going to be alright, Mister Lockhart," Volmer's voice is sensitive and kind, as it was when they first met. He gently rubs the back of his hand on Lockhart's forehead, reassuring him with weak promises. "You've been dead for over ten minutes... I'm not sure how you've come to be that way, but rest assured, you're all better now."

Lockhart's eyes open partly and his face lies expressionless as Volmer rubs his forehead and tells him that he'll be fine. I... I was... dead? He thinks, but he doesn't react to this realization. His whole body has been in tremors since he came back. Oddly enough, he believes Volmer and his tremors soon cease thereafter.

Volmer shows false concern as he cautiously unbuckles Lockhart's restraints. "Don't worry. We'll get you out of here and settled back into your room." Since Volmer's idea of using this machinery worked, he feels accomplished. He still has the opportunity to harvest as much of Lockhart as he can before he's mummified like the rest. And, it seems as though Lockhart finally no longer has the will to resist the cure. He might just win this game of chess after all. 

"...Thank you." Lockhart only manages to pump out a weak two cents before closing his eyes again, quickly receding into unconsciousness. He's exhausted, mentally and physically. There's nothing left to do but rest and leave the rest to the director.

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End file.
